Oppian's Halieuticks of the Nature of Fishes and Fishing of the Ancients: In V. Books.
Translated from the Greek, with an Account of Oppian's Life and Writings and a Catalogue
of his Fishes. Part I (Books I and II). Oxford: Printed at the THEATRE, An. Dom. MDCCXXII., 1722. [8],13,232,[8]p.
(ESTC T139002)

Source editions

Nereides: or Sea-Eclogues. London: Printed by J. H. for E. Sanger, at the Post-House, at the Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet, 1712. x, 69 p.
(ESTC T126092)

Dryades; or, The Nymphs Prophecy. A Poem. By Mr. Diaper. London: printed for Bernard Lintott at the Cross-Keys between the Two Temple-Gates, Fleet-Street, 1713. 34p.
(ESTC T1006)

Oppian's Halieuticks of the Nature of Fishes and Fishing of the Ancients: In V. Books.
Translated from the Greek, with an Account of Oppian's Life and Writings and a Catalogue
of his Fishes. Part I (Books I and II). Oxford: Printed at the THEATRE, An. Dom. MDCCXXII., 1722. [8],13,232,[8]p.
(ESTC T139002)

Biographical note

William Diaper, who was the son of Joseph Diaper of Somersetshire, was born in Bridgwater
in 1685. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1699, graduating BA in 1705. He took
holy orders in 1709 and became a curate in the parish of Brent. In 1712 he published Nereides, or, Sea-Eclogues, a reimagination of the pastoral in a sea world, which he dedicated to William Congreve.
Shortly afterwards, Bernard Lintot published Diaper's Dryades; or, The Nymph's Prophecy (1713), a georgic poem. By this time, Diaper had made contacts in London literary
circles, and he came under the patronage of Swift and Bolingbroke. In 1714 Diaper became curate in Dean, near Basingstoke, and also at Crick, Northamptonshire.
He was working on a translation of Oppian's Halieuticks, a Greek work on fish and fishing, when he died in 1717. His completed two books of the translation were published with three further books, translated by John Jones,
a Fellow of Balliol, in 1722.